How To Remove Beeswax from Hardwood

Apart from the ever so delectable and dependable honey, one of the main products made by our hardworking honey bee friends is beeswax. Composed of hydrocarbons and different kinds of esters, beeswax is a tough wax that honey bees use to maintain the honey combs of their bee hives.

Besides the honey bees using beeswax as building blocks of their homes, human beings have developed different applications for beeswax. Beeswax is gaining popularity in candle making as the beeswax provides a cleaner burn than paraffin wax. Different household polishes (shoe polishes, car polishes, or furniture polishes) use beeswax as a base for their mixture to give any surface some sheen. Beeswax is also added to face creams and lip balms to help moisturize and protect different parts of our body. Finally, beeswax can be used to preserve food such as cheeses, as it offers a natural protection against rotting.

However, beeswax can be damaging to hardwood surfaces as the beeswax can seep in and stain the wood. Due to the beeswax’s ubiquity, it can’t help but spill itself somewhere in a house, such as on hardwood floors. This can be damaging to the wood if left to stay so you would want to remove it quickly. Here are some different ways to help you remove beeswax from hardwood.

Using a hairdryer to melt the beeswax. If the beeswax has already been spilled on the wood for quite some time, it would inevitably harden and attach itself to the wood. Scratching the beeswax off must be your last option, as you wouldn’t want to destroy your hardwood. So what you can do is you can use a hairdryer to help you remove the beeswax. One good side effect of this method is the beeswax will shine the floor after removal.

Get a hairdryer, and set it to a medium heat. Not too high so as not to permanently burn the beeswax in, and not too low so you can do this quickly.

Turn the hairdryer on and point it towards the direction of the beeswax spill. Make sure you are heating the beeswax all throughout to melt it.

Once the beeswax has already melted, turn the hairdryer off and get a dry cloth to carefully wipe off the melted wax. Dispose or reuse the cloth as needed.

Using ice to harden the beeswax. If the beeswax spill is relatively new, more often than not, it hasn’t attached to the hardwood yet. But since it is stuck between molten and hard, it would be a bit difficult to remove it. What you can do is thoroughly harden the wax before removal.

Get a sealed bag of ice and place it over the beeswax spill. Allow it to rest on top of the spill for at least 5 minutes.

When the wax has thoroughly hardened, use a butter knife, a plastic card or even your fingernails to carefully scrape chunks of the hardened wax off.

Dispose of the hardened wax properly.

And that’s it! You have easily removed beeswax from your hardwood in less than 5 minutes using either of the methods above. The difficulty of beeswax removal simply depends on the severity of the spill. Just choose which method would be easier for you.